


Faithful Friends Who Are Dear To Us

by sharkneto



Series: let your heart be light [2]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Christmas, Gen, Holidays, allison very patiently waits for five to wish his wife merry christmas, and good ol' fashioned sibling bonding, for things that will fit a fifty-nine year old teenager, i'm back with more feelings, nothing hard hitting in here just some processing of emotions, still salty the official five/delores tag spells delores' name wrong, this technically comes after have yourself a merry little christmas but this stands alone just fine, unbeta'd we die like ben, while having a small emotional crisis and sorting through children's clothing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:48:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28157811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sharkneto/pseuds/sharkneto
Summary: Allison and Five make one last stop while out Christmas shopping to give season's greetings to someone special.
Relationships: Dolores/Number Five | The Boy (Umbrella Academy), Number Five | The Boy & Allison Hargreeves
Series: let your heart be light [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2062821
Comments: 14
Kudos: 92





	Faithful Friends Who Are Dear To Us

Five fidgets next to her, obviously debating something internally.

Allison lets him. He’ll share if he wants to share. Pressing him just turns it into an Ordeal.

She studies him from the corner of her eye as they continue walking back to the car. He worries his lip and mashes his eyebrows down as he works through whatever is on his mind. For all that Five has an impenetrable poker face, he’s an open book when he’s not actively maintaining it. It’s endearing. 

Snow floats down in fat flakes, standing out in stark contrast on Five’s dark hair before they melt. Allison makes a mental note to double check he has a hat when they get back home. 

They’ve been out shopping, picking up last minute presents and Christmas necessities. Well, Allison went out shopping. She dragged Five along with her to get him out of the goddamn house. On his own, Five doesn’t get out much. But he is usually game to tag along on sibling errands. She isn’t sure what his reluctance to go out on his own stems from; his unfamiliarity with a functional, modern world or that modern world’s insistence on reminding him he looks fourteen at every chance. Probably a solid combination of the two. One of those things she can help with, the other will sort itself out as he grows a bit more. 

So, sibling errands it is.

They make it another block before Five sighs and his expression smooths. He’s come to his decision.

“Can we make a stop?”

Allison blinks in surprise, “Of course.”

Five doesn’t ask for a lot. Well, that’s not quite true. When he thinks the world is ending or there’s something with the Commission, he’s a demanding terror. But personal requests are rare. Part of it is because he often just finds what he needs on his own (with varying degrees of legality, but they’re working on the idea of private property after he had the entire world at his personal, lonely disposal). The rest comes down to that he’s never had any room to have preferences to ask for, always either provided a singular option or making do with whatever he could scrounge up. 

Five nods and shoves his hands into his pockets, not clarifying further. They pass the car. Snow sparkles beautifully against the streetlights, just turning on in the dusk. Red and green lights twinkle along the shopfronts they pass. Allison adjusts her grip on the shopping bags. Hopefully his detour isn’t too much farther away.

Allison recognizes where they’re headed just before Five leads them around a corner and their destination comes into view.

Gimbels.

_Oh._

She schools her expression into a mask of positive neutrality as she feels Five studying her for a reaction from his peripheral. He knows their general feelings on Delores.

They have had a lot of Family Meetings, sans Five, about Delores. The consensus they’ve settled on is a massive shrug and a hope that it will sort itself out. None of them are that much of an asshole as to tell Five directly that his coping mechanism for soul-crushing solitude is creepy and unhealthy now that there are actual, real, live humans around again. They all dance around it, never bringing it up but not completely ignoring Five if he mentions her. 

He’ll get there on his own. He knows Delores isn’t real. Allison thinks, anyway. 

She’s pretty sure. 

Five glares at the sensor that dings loudly as they enter. 

“We’re closing in a few minutes,” a tired employee greets.

“We’ll just be a minute,” Five says in that way of his that would be fine if he looked fifty-nine but is condescending as hell coming from a teenager. Allison sends the employee an apologetic smile as she follows her brother farther into the store towards the main mannequin display. 

Five suddenly freezes, shoulders tensing. He shifts to his tiptoes to see over the clothes racks and whips around, scanning the store with a worried frown.

 _Shit._ Have they finally gotten rid of Delores? Allison wouldn’t blame them; she looks exactly like a mannequin that’s been dragged through several gunfights and that can't be great for sales. Allison slows down so she can better read Five for his reaction if Delores is truly gone. She will be there in whatever capacity she can be for Five’s emotional fallout, but she’d really rather not have to. They’ve had a nice day together. If they could push this off until at least the new year that would be preferable. 

Allison releases her breath as Five’s shoulders relax and he course corrects for a festive display in the back corner of the store, between the women’s and boy’s sections.

She cuts through a couple aisles to catch up and ends up at an angle where she can see Five’s face the moment he spots Delores again. It’s an expression she’s seen exactly three other times.

The first was when they came to Gimbels after getting back to the proper timeline and officially averting the apocalypse. They’d come to get some proper clothes for Five. It’s how she learned where Delores lived.

The second was at Vanya’s first concert back. They’d all gotten tickets, sat front and center to hear her play. Vanya had a solo and Five’s gaze, with that expression, never wavered from her.

The third was just a month ago, when Allison last visited from California. Five had been sitting, back to the bar, watching Luther, Diego, and Klaus have a heated argument about something stupid and arbitrary. 

The expression is impossibly soft, the smallest smile curving Five’s mouth and his eyes shine, his intense gaze softened but no less focused. It should look out of place on his usually sharp and aggressive features, but it’s the same intensity. Everything about Five is always intense.

Each time Allison has caught it she’s felt a little like she’s intruded on a private moment, seen something that wasn’t for her, but she can’t make herself feel sorry for it.

It’s hard to regret seeing so much love. 

“Look who got into the holiday spirit,” Five greets Delores, that impossibly soft smile still firmly in place as he takes in her red, sparkly sweater and the fluffy Santa hat jauntily balanced on her bald head. “Hey, Delores. You’ve got some new friends...”

Allison delves deeper into the boy’s section, close enough that she can intervene if any of the employees interrupt but far enough away to afford Five some privacy. All the shirts near him have stupid graphics on them, anyway. She needs to ask Five when they should expect a growth spurt so they can end the headache that is buying him children’s clothing. 

She zones a bit as she sifts through the shirts in front of her, the rhythmic clacking of hangers hypnotic.

She can’t stop thinking about that raw look of love on Five’s face. 

It’s something they’d missed when he’d first reappeared, distracted by his abrasive personality and that he looked exactly the same as the day he left. They’d been expecting thirteen-year-old Five, who they thought probably loved them but in that grudging, childish ‘ _it’s because we’re family and I have to_ ’ way. Instead, they were greeted by a grown man with an all-consuming love hidden beneath stunted social skills and violent problem-solving solutions. 

She pauses on a red long-sleeve only to keep sorting as she finds a weird tribal pattern on the back. 

It had been a shock when they realized how far Five was willing to go for them, what he was willing to do. Luther is still trying to come to terms with it. They’re all at different stages of understanding. It doesn’t help that Five is genuinely incapable of expressing his feelings, but his actions speak and they speak _loudly_ , if they’re looking.

Allison is doing her best to look, these days.

She pulls out a soft blue sweater, carefully scanning it for any hiding cartoon characters or dumb slogans. It’s plain. She checks the size. It’s Five’s. She tugs it off the hanger and drapes it over an arm. 

If she’s being honest, it’s intimidating to be loved that much. To be loved so much as to be a singular, driving force that kept him going for forty-five years, alone and starving and hurting. To keep going after being slammed down again and again and again. To do unspeakable acts on the chance it bought him enough time to fix things. To single-handedly invent an entire division of math and physics to force the world to bend to his will and let him save them. To be given an impossible hand and to look at it and say _no, actually_.

Allison has to think if she loves anyone that much. Claire, definitely. She would burn the world if she had to for her daughter. Maybe Raymond, if they’d had longer. She loves Raymond an awful lot. Loved Raymond an awful lot. 

Her fist clenches around a t-shirt and she has to close her eyes against the wave of longing and hurt thinking of Ray brings. Thanks to their time traveling, it’s been almost a year since she left him behind. She hasn’t had the courage to look where he ended up. She also hasn’t had the courage to ask Five if their time in the sixties was in this timeline or the other one. If the Ray she found here would even know her.

She deliberately relaxes her hand and puts the shirt back. It has a motorcycle on it. She takes a measured breath in and lets it out slowly.

She thinks she might love her siblings enough to fight the end of the world for them. She has, literally, but that was with them, all together. Alone, against impossible odds and in hell? The answer before the first apocalypse, before everything fell apart with Patrick and Claire, would have been a hard no with a hearty laugh. Now though? After they’ve gone through so much together and fought so hard to be a family again? She wants to think it would be a yes. 

Allison can’t imagine being thirteen and coming to the same conclusion. Five’s particular brand of arrogance might have been the one thing that guaranteed he actually could save the world.

A couple employees are starting to hover nearer, either because it’s time to close or because a kid is standing there having a heart to heart with a mannequin. Allison drifts closer so she can intervene if needed. From here it’s much harder to ignore Five’s conversation. 

“...been good, though. Vanya’s orchestra performed the Nutcracker, we all went to see her play. She was incredible, you would have loved it… What? Of course I told her… Yes with words, why do you think I’m so bad at communicating?... Oh ha ha. You could have left at any point over the years if I was so bad…”

Allison feigns interest in some khaki pants to hide her smile. She’s never actually listened to any of Five’s conversations with Delores before. The disconnect between what he’s assigned to Delores and his own thoughts and actions is illuminating. It’s like he knows his short-comings and instead of addressing them just lets his made-up wife chastise him. A psychiatrist would have a field day. 

“I know we don’t usually do anything for Christmas, but it’s the first one back and… Yeah, that’s a good way of putting it. Incomplete… I know. I know we have a second shot, to try again, to try and be something new. But, you know me. I’m a sentimental old man… Actually, you only missed one. Commission had me on a crazy schedule…”

One of the employees squinting at Five starts walking over. Allison quickly navigates the aisles to head him off.

“Hi,” Allison says, most aggressive smile in place as she blocks the employee’s view of Five.

The employee looks from Five’s direction and up to Allison. His name tag says his name is Josh. She watches as he visibly decides he’s not paid enough to deal with this, “We’re closing and I need to ask you two to leave.”

Allison’s smile doesn’t waver, “Of course! I’ll grab my brother and we’ll be out in a moment.” She thrusts the blue sweater at him and pulls some cash out of her purse, “Would you mind checking this out for me? I’ll grab it on our way out.” She has no idea if Five is ready to leave or not. She hopes so. She’ll Rumor the employees to let them stay if she absolutely has to but she’d really rather not. 

Josh takes the sweater and money and, with one last confused glance towards Five, heads to the front with a shrug.

Allison walks back towards Five, not bothering to be quiet this time. Her shopping bags crinkle as they bang against her legs. His head turns slightly as she approaches but he doesn’t look away from his wife.

“Anyway, Merry Christmas, Delores. I’ve cherished every one of our forty Christmases together, even if we didn’t do much to celebrate… You are what made them special, and if this is our last one I wanted to be sure you knew that.” 

Silence hangs for a long moment before Five gives a small nod to the mannequin and turns to Allison, quickly neutralizing the raw expression on his face. She raises an eyebrow slightly, “Ok to go?”

He clears his throat and gives another nod, shoving his hands back into his pockets, “Yeah, we can head out.” He heaves a sigh before leading the way towards the front. He pauses once to spare a long look back at Delores. Delores sits as she always has – legless, bald, her singular arm thrown out to show off the beautiful sparkles of her red sweater. 

Allison scoops up her purchase as they pass the checkout, adding it to her collection of bags. Five pays her no mind. Relieved employees lock the doors behind them as they step back out onto the street.

Night has fallen completely in the few minutes they’ve spent in the store. Snow is coming down in earnest, now, coating everything in a fresh, sparkling layer. The red and green lights reflect off the white dusting to create an extra festive glow. Other pedestrians trudge through the snow past them, coats bundled carefully against the chill. Cars carefully pass on the slushy street, headlights shining and illuminating the falling snow in waves.

Five has stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, taking in the beautiful scene. His face is serene, more peaceful than she thinks she’s ever seen him.

She wonders what he’s thinking about.

Allison walks up beside him and gently bumps his shoulder with her arm. He glances up at her. She offers him a gentle smile.

“You good?”

He turns back to the street, every one of his fifty-nine years showing on his young face, “Yeah. Thank you.”

Allison gives him another moment to feel whatever he’s feeling before breaking it, “Great. Help me carry these.” She shoves half of the shopping bags at him.

Five’s small smile stretches into a wry grin. He takes the bags with an arched eyebrow and they start their way back to the car and home, leaving muffled footprints in the snow behind them.

**Author's Note:**

> I spend too much time thinking about how much Five loves and how bad he is at showing it. Also, there's no way he could just leave Delores cold turkey - he'd have to come by to see how she's doing, at least a few times. They were happily married for thirty years, that love doesn't just stop because you realize your wife isn't real. I adore Delores and everything she represents to Five so, so much. 
> 
> Also Allison, I need to mention how much I love Allison. She's worked so hard to be a good person, she makes me soft.
> 
> Unbeta'd, so if there's any wonky grammar going on in there let me know so I can edit that right up.
> 
> Love to hear your thoughts! You can always drop me a line on tumblr, too, at sharkneto
> 
> Happy Holidays to everyone and stay safe!


End file.
